This invention relates in general to the cane, crutch, and walker prior art and in particular to prior art wheeled legs and the attachable trays and baskets for these inventions. And insofar as this prior art intends to help walker-bound invalid people achieve a minimum degree of self-sufficiency, it nevertheless fails for a significant number of these people because they lack the basic strength and control necessary to utilize these inventions as they were intended to be used.
For example, a significant number of walker-bound people are unable to perform the simple task of carrying a prepared meal from a refrigerator or stovetop to a dining room table without either spilling the meal or by doing so with great difficulty. This is principally due to the fact that these people must use both hands to handle the walker and, thus, they have no free hands with which to transport their meal. Similarly, people who are dependent on canes, crutches, or other assistive devices experience comparable, although somewhat lesser, degrees of difficulties in this situation.
Continuing with the example, walker-bound people might decide to modify their walkers to include prior art front wheels in place of front legs in addition to a tray or basket. Hence, with these modifications, a walker-bound person is theoretically capable of transporting prepared meals. In practice however, a large percentage of walker-bound people spill their meals because they lack the strength and control necessary to keep from jerking or `hopping` their walker. Similarly, a significant number of walker-bound invalids don't do their own laundry because, even with the aforementioned modifications to their walkers, they lack the strength necessary to push these relatively heavy loads.
Thus, although crutch-, cane-, and/or walker-bound people want to feel useful and self-sufficient, they nevertheless tend to remain dependent upon other, non-invalid people to provide many basic, home health care services for them. The social and financial burden implicit with the need for these personal services can often be in excess of what many of these handicapped people can reasonably afford.